The presentation on which this article is based was inspired by an Ontario Ministry of Education announcement of a number of curriculum changes. These changes affect Ontario's schools only, but the trend which they represent is nation-wide, if not world-wide. For that reason the Editor asked me to prepare the paper for publication in this magazine.

The Issue⤒🔗

Although several subjects are affected by the Ministry's policy, we will consider only those that concern the teaching of history. The changes proposed for this subject are outlined in a core program entitled Self and Society. It proposes an overhaul of the present curriculum, resulting in the integration of Canadian history with various other subjects, such as business studies, family studies, geography, guidance, and physical and health education. History as we know it, therefore, will disappear from the Ministry Guidelines, at least for the Intermediate Division (grades 7 to 10).

The proposal has caused raised eyebrows in many circles across the province. Our own schools also are concerned about it. They believe that it will result in a watering down of the curriculum, that it will leave our students with little or no knowledge of their own past and, worst of all, that it is inspired by the Ministry's intention to force a philosophy down our throats that we cannot accept. I should make it clear that our NDP Ministry is not introducing something entirely new. As we will presently see, previous Ministries have held similar philosophies. Even so, this time a rather big step is being taken. Clearly, the time has come for Reformed schools to make a careful study of the issue.

This presentation is meant as a contribution to that study. My focus will not be on the Self and Society program as such. I have chosen, rather, to say something about the background of the Ministry's policy with respect to the teaching of history, and about what I believe should be our response to that policy. I intend to do this by answering three questions. They are the following:

• What is the trend at the Ministry of Education regarding the teaching of history?

• How do we explain that trend? More concretely: what are the reasons for the Ministry's apparent anti-historical attitude?

• What should be our own view of the place of history in the curriculum, and why?

The Trend: History Under the Old Program←⤒🔗

The Ministry of Education has for years already dealt with history in a niggardly fashion. Under the old guidelines (the ones that are presently in use) a few Canadian history courses have been made compulsory, but the schools of Ontario are free to ignore the history of the rest of the world. Neither elementary nor high schools are being told to teach European, or American, or world, or ancient history. All that is required is two Canadian history courses in the senior grades of the elementary school, and one Canadian history course at the high school level. And by stating it in this way I am being generous. For even at present the courses in the senior grades of the elementary school are not meant to be genuine history courses. They are supposed to be mixed up with geography to form what are called Social Studies. Even so, Canadian history is a more or less distinct part of the program.

The Ministry's policy (under the old guidelines) of making only Canadian history compulsory does not mean that schools may not teach non-Canadian history courses. They are free to do so – if they can find time for it. Most of our schools do, even though it makes for tight timetabling. But the fact remains that, as far as the Ministry is concerned, entire generations of Canadians can graduate with absolutely no knowledge of the history of any country except their own.

There is another point. It is that with respect to these Canadian history courses the Ministry has for years already appeared to be as much interested in teaching attitudes as knowledge. Some years ago the history teachers at Guido de Brès High School prepared a list of the attitudes the Ministry expects Ontario schools to inculcate under the old guidelines. The list included: “a situation-ethics approach, tolerance of the values of others, appreciation of minority rights and of multiculturalism, patriotism, appreciation of individual freedom, feminism, and a positive self-concept.” I admit that we can subscribe to at least some of these attitudes, but if we take it all together it becomes a bit much. Every one is fashionable, and politically correct. Traditional values, such as respect for authority, for example, and a willingness to learn from the past, are conspicuous by their absence.

And what goes for the present guidelines goes for the new ones, those of the Self and Society program – except that things become even more extreme. Under the old guidelines historical content was still considered important. If we judge by the so-called “learning outcomes” of the new program, it no longer is. As one commentator writes, these outcomes “have nothing to do with academic learning. They are “affective” in nature (dealing with emotions, beliefs, and attitudes). They require the child to adopt politically correct ideas, a proper environmental role, make a collectivist economic contribution, and become a proper global citizen.” You notice it: the NDP government follows the direction laid out by its predecessors, but it moves at an accelerated pace.

Why this Anti-historical Attitude?←⤒🔗

And that brings us to our second question: how do we explain this trend? I suggest the following six reasons:

1.  History is Not a Practical Subject←↰⤒🔗

This is of course true. History is not a subject that prepares one directly for a profitable career, and that is a real disadvantage in our business-oriented society. Even at Christian schools, where history is often made compulsory, the complaint can occasionally be heard that it is not really “useful,” and therefore a bit of a luxury. The Ministry has a keen ear for that type of objection.

2.  History is Relative←↰⤒🔗

This means that the lessons to be derived from history are not considered reliable, because, in a sense, you can do with the past what you want. Look at what Stalin did with it, and Hitler. A well-known philosopher, the Frenchman Voltaire, once said that history is “playing tricks on the dead,” and Henry Ford may have meant the same thing when he made the statement that “history is bunk.” The criticism that the past can be abused in this manner is to the point. I will come back to it.

3.  The Past is Irrelevant←↰⤒🔗

Here we come to the widespread belief that the past has little to teach us in any case. This attitude ties in with the faith in evolutionism: wisdom, according to that philosophy, is not to be found in the past, but in the future; not with the elders, but with the young – so why bother about the past? Such evolutionistic faith is of course strengthened by our experiences in a technological society: we simply know that the next generation of computers, cd players, microwaves, and so on, will be better, more advanced, than the previous one. And since technology is the big thing in our society, it sets the norm for everything.

4.  The Past is an Embarrassment←↰⤒🔗

This slogan is heard more and more in our days. The idea is that the world is a mess today, what with racism, the oppression of women, pollution, a thinning ozone layer – you name it. It has become customary to blame our ancestors for this mess. The guilty one is the so-called dwhem, that is, the dead, white, heterosexual, European male. He has for centuries run the show and is therefore the cause of all the suffering in both past and present. The past is his past and it is an ugly one, so again, why study it? Remember the treatment Columbus received in 1992, on the 400th anniversary of the discovery of America? In previous epochs he used to be celebrated as a hero. He is now considered a villain, a typical dead white European male. I should add that because the past was Christian, Christianity shares in these attacks.

5.  Knowledge of the Past is Harmful←↰⤒🔗

I am referring here to the feeling that the past is a burden which restricts our freedom of action; that it paralyses and imprisons us. There is some truth in this objection also. History can become an obsession. It can allow old hatreds to fester and to lead to violence at the first opportunity. Look at the causes of the two World Wars. Look also at the violence in places like Bosnia and Rwanda. In these cases the recollection of the past seems to have served no other purpose than to keep nationalist and ethnic hatreds alive, and inflame the desire for revenge for past injuries.

On a non-violent level, there can be a hyper-conservative attitude that fights innovation simply because it is innovation, and because the past is considered sacrosanct. We all know of examples. The question that needs answering, however, is whether these types of misuse of the past could be avoided if the study of history were banned from the schools. More about that later.

6.  There is No Generally Valid Truth←↰⤒🔗

One more reason for the decline of the value of history in the eyes of the Ministry, as I see it, is the belief that there is no longer any generally valid truth. This may well be the most important reason for the current attitude – and it does not affect the history curriculum only. It is connected with the fact that we live in what is called the postmodern age.

One article of the postmodern faith is that God is dead, and that with Him all absolute norms and standards are gone. We therefore must create our own norms, and decide for ourselves what is true and good and right. As the postmodernist New Agers term it: we create our own reality, and that includes our own version of the past. We do so as groups (blacks, natives, feminists, gays, and so on) and as individuals. And we agree that our version is as good for us as our neighbour's is for him, even though the two may be utterly opposed. Essentially it's a matter of: if it feels good to me I am going to believe it, if not, I won't. This being the mindset, it is obvious that any serious study of history becomes an exercise in futility.

So much, then, for what I believe to be the main reasons why history is under attack in our days. The attackers are generally progressive, left-wing intellectuals, who have traditionally been influential in teacher training centres and in Ministry circles. They still are, also in Toronto.

We now come to the third of our subtopics, which concerns our own view regarding the teaching of history. Before providing you with a detailed list of arguments in favour of history, I have to deal with the six criticisms that we considered. I will follow the same order as before.

Lack of Practicality←⤒🔗

We begin with the charge concerning the non-practical nature of history. This criticism is to the point if we equate practicality with career-training. Not many jobs exist for which historical knowledge is a direct prerequisite.

There are, however, indirect career benefits to be derived from the study of history. For example, a B.A. in history can provide a background for professional studies such as theology, law, and library and archival science. In a more general sense, the study of history is a good preparation for practically all further studies. This is so not only because of the knowledge, but also because of the skills it imparts. I am thinking here of research skills, of the ability to analyse and synthesize, and of the skills required for oral and written composition and communication.

Nor are the benefits of such knowledge and skills restricted to those who plan to go to college or university. Not all our students do. But all of them expect to have a task awaiting them in church and state, in society and the family. And there both the knowledge and many of the skills imparted by the study of history will be an asset. If you think I am protesting too much here, look at the Old Testament. Transmitting and imparting the knowledge of the past was the Lord's order to parents and teachers, and no student was allowed to consider it a mere option. What went for ancient Israel went for practically every culture in history, including our own.

Subjectivism and Relativism←⤒🔗

The second charge concerned history's excessive subjectivism and relativism – remember the remarks of Voltaire and Henry Ford. These critics, too, have a point, and teachers certainly have to keep these dangers in mind. And I think that we have to warn our students against them as well, already at the Intermediate Level. They have to learn to read between the lines, so to speak. They must realize that every author has its own message, his own axe to grind, and they must learn to discern the spirits. In a word, they must be taught to look critically at what they read – in their history text and in other books, and of course also at what they see on T.V. and video. They should also be told to strive for objectivity themselves. “Playing tricks on the dead” is to be avoided: the end never justifies the means.

The Idea of Progress←⤒🔗

The third charge was that history has nothing to teach us, because wisdom belongs to the present and the future, rather than to the past. I reminded you that this belief is tied up with evolutionism, and reinforced by the achievements of an increasingly clever technology. You will have noted the blind spot in this kind of reasoning. Technology is not the only thing in life, nor is it the most important one – certainly not when we look at it under the aspect of eternity. The ancient Greeks already knew that, pagans though they were. Aristotle told us that technical knowledge comes only in the third place. First comes the search for truth, and second, the knowledge for right living and right acting. It is only after we have acquired those kinds of knowledge that we can use all things wisely, including technology. And is this not also the Bible's message?

For the time being I am going to ignore the objections of our present-day culture-bashers. I will have something to say on that point later on.

History as a Burden?←⤒🔗

That brings us to the fifth set of objections – those about the paralysing effect of history, and about the past being a prison. This type of objections has to be taken seriously. They certainly underline the need for honesty in our interpretation. These complaints also serve as a reminder that we may never treat history as normative. Only the Word of God is. That Word must guide us in our interpretation and in our presentation of history. That means, among other things, that we don't ignore what was evil in the past (another point to which I will return).

There is a further answer to the complaint that history paralyses and imprisons us. It is this: misuse of history is practically always the result not of a serious and objective study of the past, but of an inadequate, inaccurate, and warped knowledge. As is well-known, it is the strategy of tyrants first to falsify history and then to use the rewritten product for their own evil ends. Similarly, people who refer to history as an excuse for hatred and violence refer, as often as not, to a half-forgotten, mythologized, and distorted version of that history.

Let me use an analogy here. You all know about the Repressed Memory Syndrome, and the belief that mental health will not return until the real past is brought back. C.S. Lewis once suggested that a repressed memory, or a forgotten past, can be as harmful in society as in the life of the individual. He concluded that therefore serious students of history tend to be less enslaved to the past than their fellow-mortals. It's a point to be kept in mind.

What I have tried to show in the foregoing is that the dangers of excessive subjectivism and relativism, and of abusing history in other ways, are present, and deserving of our attention, but that they can be dealt with. They certainly do not justify the anti-historical attitude of our opinion makers. That attitude, and the resulting policy of depriving our young people of a sound and solid knowledge of their past, entails much greater dangers, as we already noted in the preceding paragraph.

This applies not in the last place in connection with the negative aspects of the past. As I said before, these must be mentioned. Whitewashing won't do. Even if we tried, we wouldn't get away with it. Our politically correct society will make sure that our students find out sooner or later. But we have to remember that honest reporting is not the same as condemnation. The excessively negative attitude of our social critics toward the past must be avoided.

In the first place, it is presumptuous: nobody appointed us judges over our ancestors. To believe that we are worthy of that function, moreover, shows an abysmal lack of self-knowledge. Our society is guilty of its own brand of crimes that would have shocked earlier generations. And in the second place, such a negative attitude blinds us to the benefits we received in our country and civilization, and through our predecessors. It poisons our roots and thereby threatens both the present and the future. For one of the great benefits of the study of history is to make us aware of our roots and our identity. No one can function well without that awareness; no one, deprived of it, can look with hope and confidence to the future.

The Case of Postmodernism←⤒🔗

And therefore – and now I come to the sixth and final objection – we Will fight the postmodernists' scepticism and affirm that truth exists, and that much of the past can be objectively known. Let us never forget that this postmodern scepticism threatens the destruction not only of our national past, but also of our religion. For the Christian religion is a historical religion: our God has revealed Himself in history and in His Son He has entered our history.

I am afraid that we will encounter the postmodern attack on the existence of truth, and therefore also on our religion, more and more: it is part of the spirit of the age. For that reason it will be good if teachers deal with the technicalities of history: with the finding and testing of evidence, for example. That will show the children that history can be objective. Teachers should, of course, also show the illogical nature of the postmodern creed: if there is no truth, then that creed itself cannot be true either. Those who proclaim it keep forgetting that. They keep forgetting that they are sawing off the branch on which they themselves are sitting.

Additional Benefits←⤒🔗

That takes care of the six objections. I have a few other points to make in defence of history. They follow here:

• Properly taught and learned, history should help students find their roots and identity, and thereby shield them from a debilitating cultural amnesia.

• It should contribute to the students' understanding of their country, its people, its traditions, and its institutions, and so help them to fulfil their obligations as citizens.

• It should also serve to kindle in them a proper love for their country, a sense of gratitude for what they have received in it, and a willingness to serve it. The study of history should not just be a matter of memorizing facts and dates; it must have personal significance for the student and result in personal commitment.

• As much as possible, history should make our students aware of what is happening in the world at large. We justly object to the Ministry's globalist approach, and we rightly stress the urgent need that students know their local, national, and cultural identity. They are citizens of a specific country and members of a specific civilization. That's where they belong, where they have their roots, and where their first loyalties lie. Our defence against the Ministry's globalism must not, however, be an escape into a selfish parochialism. Whether we like it or not, the world is becoming a global village, and the trend will continue in the next century and millennium. Our students need to know about this world, learn to understand it, and indeed, learn to care for it.

• History should hone our students' critical thinking skills by making them aware of the origin and consequences of an all-pervasive relativism, and of other modern and postmodern anti-Christian ideologies. For let's face it, new ideologies are practically always recycled old ones: old heresies never die. They keep coming back. By studying the past we can recognize them for what they are and see through them, rather than be taken in by them.

• History should free our students from what the Roman statesman Cicero called the tyranny of the present. Cicero meant thereby that those who know nothing but the present have no standard by which to compare and evaluate present follies (and there are a great many of those). When people study history, however, they will find out not only that much of what our time proclaims as wisdom is in fact foolishness, but also that there are life-giving alternatives to present-day “wisdoms” in the past.

• It should help students become more clearly aware of the antithesis, the enmity, that runs through human history since Genesis 3, and prepare them, also intellectually, for the spiritual battle to which they are called.

• Finally, the study of the past should remind them that history develops under divine providence. That does not mean that with respect to specific events they should try to explain why God allowed them, and what He meant by them. Nobody is capable of doing that, and nobody should presume that he is. It does mean that they learn to trust His governance of the world, and find therein the meaning of history.

I know that I am touching upon a difficult issue in this last point. God's providential care is ultimately a matter of faith, rather than sight. As church historian Dr. L. Praamsma put it, “He who wants to get hold of it by grasping it with his hands misses it,” but he added, “he who ignores it loses what is essential.” Or to quote William Barclay: “It is the Christian conviction that history is a plan, that history has a purpose, that history is the working out of the will of God.”

What Should We Do?←⤒🔗

Obviously our schools have to continue to fight the philosophy that has inspired Ontario's history guidelines for several years, up to and including the new Self and Society program. But to avoid possible misunderstandings: I am not suggesting that the battle is to be fought on the history front only. Various other subjects are similarly threatened.

Our Ministry, I believe, will continue to stress the need of teaching academic knowledge in such fields as mathematics and science. After all, they produce something tangible: advances in economics and technology. But I am afraid that, like history, other traditional school subjects may become less and less important as conveyers of academic knowledge. All this, as we already saw, is in agreement with the post-modern creed that each individual and group creates his or its own truth and meaning. It is likely, therefore, that subjects like the humanities and the social sciences will increasingly be seen as social tools, to be used to inculcate what the government, functioning as our Big Brother, considers socially acceptable attitudes. Remember the quotation I gave you at the start of the first article concerning the learning outcomes of the Self and Society program.

Not only will young people be in danger of being brainwashed in this way, they will also lack the knowledge and intellectual skills to stand up to such indoctrination – that is, if we do not continue to make sure that they are taught that knowledge and those skills. Here lies the primary task of the Christian school. It was established to provide a training ground, where young people learn to fight the spiritual battle to which they are called. It is precisely that function that the government is in the process of undermining, bit by bit. Clearly, it is time for us all to take a stand. Our schools must remain under the control of the parents, rather than passing under that of Ministry ideologues.

But even then we have to make sure that our schools indeed serve the function for which they were founded. For also in the absence of government pressure, the temptation will be there for us to follow the spirit of the age – even if we do it only cautiously, and at a respectable distance from the public sector. For that reason the periodical appearance of curriculum overhauls by the Ministry is probably good for us. It forces us to have a good look at current philosophies, and to respond to the challenge they pose. And it reminds us that, if we want to keep our schools Christian and reformed, we can't afford to let our guard down.